Monday, January 19, 2015

In Depth with Steven Pinker

Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker talked about his life and career. He responded to telephone calls and electronic mail. Videos were shown of Steven Pinker in his house in Boston, talking about his writing habits and showing the books in his library. Many photographs he had taken were also shown.

Steven Pinker currently teaches at Harvard University where he holds the positions of Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Steven Pinker conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and Slate, and is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules (1999), The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002), and his latest, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (2007).